Has Arizona gone completely nuts?

[tcaudilllg]

First they passed a law enabling cops to racially profile Hispanics and to arrest any immigrant, legal or not, who was not carrying around their papers with them. Now they've outlawed the teaching of ethnic history classes (goodbye Black History Month!), and moreover, accused teachers of these classes of fomenting rebellion. Are they going to declare the supremacy of the Aryan race next?

No seriously, this is insane.

Now are there anti-melting pot radical, crazy teachers in the world? Absolutely, I had one in college and hurriedly dropped the class when she started with her multiculturalism rhetoric. But the reaction by Arizona is at best an overreaction, and at worst completely wrongheaded and even illegal. The scary thing about it is, we've seen it before. In Kansas before the rational center finally rebelled and kicked out the crazy school board officials who were insisting that creationism be taught alongside evolution. It's a phenomenon that is becoming gradually worse: as liberals leave the small states for the cities, the small states are becoming increasingly red. For a while, this didn't mean anything. But now the right-wing fringe has realized that the out-flux is persistent, and that this enables them to seize absolute power in the small states. Arizona has an overwhelmingly Republican legislature. One wouldn't think this would be an issue but, the Rockefeller Republicans are an endangered species and today, most of the people running in red states today are outright loony if not plain stupid. As such, their thinking is getting increasingly erratic and even dictatorial.

I'm concerned that if there is not a strong response by the federal government against Arizona and soon, other red states will follow suit in abandoning social responsibility and attacking the rights of their citizens. It's worth noting that the government can do something: the U.S. code specifically prohibits the denial of rights and enables the prosecution of those who conspire to enable the same.

[GallopingQwerty]

I'm worried about it, too. This is similar to what happened around the time the Japanese internment camps started gaining favor during WWII, only we're targeting Mexican people instead of those of Middle Eastern descent (which would make more sense because we're actually fighting them, but I digress here since that whole war doesn't make any sense either).

Here in California we often hear arguments for similar types of rules because we have tons of Mexicans here... there are even designated areas of the city for day laborers who wait around to get picked to climb into whatever pickup truck says they'll hire them for the day, no questions asked.

That law will never get passed here, though, because honestly our state economy would never survive the sudden loss in labor.

[Creepy-bg]

-edit- nevermind. it isn't worth it to get into a discussion on this.

[tcaudilllg]

It's McCarthy all over again. The government needs to recognize the threat and neutralize it.

[discojoe]

Racial profiling is fine.

Go away, tcaudilllg. No one likes you and you contribute nothing to society.

[Slacker]

My husband is an immigrant. If we go to Arizona and he isn't carrying his green card, can he be arrested? Or does him being white and English-speaking make it OK?

[tcaudilllg]

Racial profiling is fine.

Go away, tcaudilllg. No one likes you and you contribute nothing to society.

Care to take a vote on that?

[Cyrano]

Racial profiling is fine.

Go away, tcaudilllg. No one likes you and you contribute nothing to society.

Would be easier if you could get them to wear yellow bands on their arms.

[crazedrat]

Racial profiling is fine.

Go away, tcaudilllg. No one likes you and you contribute nothing to society.

I'm curious discojoe.. what do you contribute to society?